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or Why Santa Ana Stadium Is the Hardest Place to Play.
The question of which stadium is the most difficult to compete in is, topically, an interesting and subjective question. After all, the fans in the stadium are assumed to have a negligible effect upon the offensive outcome of the game, because of the noise and confusion they generate, their effect is primarily seen on the defensive aspect of the game. However, teams play against other teams, Offensive lineman square off against the front defensive seven players, so team defensive performances must not be analyzed in a vacuum, but besides their competition. To this end, general defensive team statistics give us a starting point for the investigation:
Based upon an initial look at these numbers, you would expect the Baltimore Hawks to have the best home defense. After all, they have the most tackles, the most forced fumbles, most interceptions , most defensive touchdowns, etc. But do these numbers tell the whole story? Lets dig deeper. Each team has played a different number of homes games, which gives each team a different number of games statistics to analyze, and makes the data differing levels of reliability. Outlier good or bad performances unequally effect different teams and their projected outcomes, so a control test was needed.
Home defenses added:
By the numbers, the answer is obvious. The Otters home stadium of Santa Ana Stadium is clearly the toughest arena for opposing offenses to execute in. These numbers above do, and also do not quite fit with what the defensive statistics are showing. The hawks are allowing the most first downs in the league, most total yards in the league, and averaging the most turnovers in the league. A separate investigation would be useful to determine the value of their defense being on the field for so long to give up that many first downs and yards allowed, weighted against the amount of turnovers the hawks receive, but that is beyond the scope of this investigation.
It would make sense here, that the hawks are leading the league in tackles, forcing the most fumbles, and getting the most defensive touchdowns, because this unit is on the field for the longest amount of time. Lets introduce the numbers of total defensive performances and see if this dramatically affects the
Total Defenses:
These numbers all agree with the home defensive statistics, however there are a few outliers to highlight. The Otters defense, while amazing at home, are slightly less dominating taken as a whole. Their total defensive performances are leading the league, but when the stout Otters front comes home to Orange County, they actual turn from the best defense in the game to the bestest defense in the game! Every team plays better at home, which again would seem to bear out in the team's overall ratings and the skew between home and away records.
Team total defenses statistic shown are a general addition of stats, but not a good legend for how the team is doing defensively, how it is performing against its peers in the league, or against yards allowed. Looking further at the general defensive statistics, this is fairly obvious. To have the most tackles, you and your defense needs to be on the field longer than the opponent.
However, team defenses and their destiny is not solely their own control. The respective offenses must continue drives longer, and score more points to prevent the defenses from being on the field for more than their fair share of the game. This condensed number of offensive success is difficult to synthesize, as the team's speed of offense, play calling preferences, etc. The Otters reign supreme!
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